The Jeongsu Scholarship Foundation is again haunting the Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye. According to news reports, the foundation has decided to sell off its stake in Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. and the Busan Ilbo, the largest daily in Busan, and use the sales proceeds for welfare projects in Busan and its surrounding South Gyeongsang Province.The foundation’s president Choe Phil-lip recently met MBC officials and agreed to sell its 30 percent stake in the broadcaster to the

Recently, chaebol business groups have been slammed for encroaching upon business areas considered more suitable for small-business people, such as bakeries, pizza shops and restaurants. One more item needs to be added to the list ― tobacco retail.Lotte Group, the nation’s fifth largest chaebol with presence in diverse business fields including distribution, is under fire for using illegal means to earn profits from tobacco sales. Under the law, only shop operators who directly sell cigarettes t

In a race to tighten regulations on chaebol in the name of “economic democracy,” presidential candidates are moving to write proposed changes in corporate governance into law ahead of the Dec. 19 election. But hasty legislation may do more harm than good.Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party is moving to pass two key bills shortly after the National Assembly completes its inspection of government agencies next week.Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party, which is working

Ahn Cheol-soo recently claimed that an independent, such as himself, can make a good president if, while holding the legislature in high esteem, he is capable of persuading the ruling and opposition parties to pursue common goals. An independent, persuasive president’s governance, he said, is a viable alternative to either the conservative Saenuri Party’s continuously uninspiring majority rule or the liberal Democratic United Party’s ineffective, cantankerous minority government. But it is incon

Which side is telling the truth, the ruling Saenuri Party or the main opposition Democratic United Party? The two parties are confronting each other over the allegations that former President Roh Moo-hyun made remarks gravely detrimental to national interests during his summit with Kim Jong-il on Oct. 3, 2007.The allegations were put forward by Chung Moon-hun, a Saenuri lawmaker who worked at Cheong Wa Dae as presidential secretary for unification affairs between 2009 and 2010.During a parliamen

Myanmar President Thein Sein’s visit to Seoul earlier this week highlighted the importance the Southeast Asian country attached to expanding its ties with South Korea. The Myanmar leader came here to reciprocate President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to Naypyidaw in May. The top leaders’ exchange of visits indicates deepening relations between the countries ― a development that must be painful to North Korea, as Myanmar has long been one of Pyongyang’s allies.Myanmar embarked on a path of political and

The latest selection of Kim So-young, a woman appellate court judge, as a Supreme Court justice nominee marks a fresh turn in the court’s nomination process. It should be welcomed on at least two counts.If approved by the legislature, her selection will mark an end to a long-held, misguided practice of keeping one prosecutor-turned justice on the court’s 14-member bench. It will also contribute to promoting diversity in the male-dominated bench. She will become the nation’s fourth woman justice

In announcing a decision not to renew a currency swap contract with Japan on Tuesday, South Korea denied that domestic politics over a territorial dispute had a hand in making the decision. So did Japan, which claimed that the decision was based “purely on economic and financial factors.”Both of them were saying it was no longer necessary to extend the $57 billion swap deal because Korea had gained resilience to external financial risks. But few would believe it was Korea’s improved economic and

A recent string of defections by North Korean soldiers across the inter-Korean border, as intelligence sources here suggest, may point to crumbling discipline within the key apparatus shoring up the impoverished regime. A 17-year-old soldier crossed the Military Demarcation Line near the truce village of Panmunjeom on Saturday after shooting two superiors dead. Four days earlier, another soldier defected to the South on the eastern front. A third North Korean soldier crossed the heavily-armed la

For Koreans, the Nobel Prize season is a period that makes them feel modest and even humiliated about their academic and intellectual levels, which are far below the world’s best.This year’s Nobel week kicked off Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize, which went to Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka and Britain’s John Gurdon for discovering that adult cells can be transformed back to early stem cells which can then be used to form any tissue type. No Korean name has been mentioned as a possibl

Where is the ruling Saenuri Party headed? Looking at the suicidal in-party fighting, many supporters of the conservative party must be feeling that it is on the path to defeat in the December presidential election. One factor fueling the worsening conflicts is resentment among the party’s lawmakers who are not included in the campaign team for its presidential candidate, Park Geun-hye.The recent drop in Park’s approval ratings led a group of young lawmakers to demand an overhaul of the party’s l

As it is increasingly becoming clear that the Korean economy is headed for a prolonged period of slow growth due to the global economic slump, the nation should refocus on economic growth and make concerted efforts to keep the economy running. The nation’s economy is already under the influence of the sputtering global economy. In the World Economic Outlook released Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund cut its growth estimate for Korea this year to 2.7 percent. Its previous forecast, announc

Slightly more than two months are left until the Dec. 19 presidential election. But none of the leading presidential candidates has produced a comprehensive platform ― a wide-ranging public statement of principles in policy on which he or she takes a stand in appealing to the electorate.This is not to say they make few policy statements in their campaigns. They do make election promises on welfare, mention their ideas about future relations with North Korea and refer to other issues of concern t

Top South Korean negotiators, who have recently concluded a renewed accord on ballistic missiles with their U.S. counterparts, are patting themselves on the back over what they regard as a major breakthrough after 11 years of bargaining. They also attribute part of the success to the friendship President Lee Myung-bak has cultivated with U.S. President Barack Obama.“This is the outcome that resulted from the combination of the best South Korea-U.S. relationship, personal friendship between their

If Psy’s “Gangnam Style” tops the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week after ranking second for two consecutive weeks, the Korean singer will have set another record for his country’s language. It would become the first song written in Korean to climb to the top of the pop music chart.No doubt his horsey dance moves helped make the song’s music video a global sensation after its July release on YouTube. But the excited audiences around the world would certainly have felt more attracted to the song